Attacks on Jews and the Jewish state are far from uncommon in the sermons and public appearances of imams in the U.S., writes Mohammed Al-Azdee. For instance:

In a series of interviews with the Egyptian Al-Nas and Al-Rahma TV channels in December 2008, Imam Salah Sultan, president of the American Center for Islamic Research (ACIR), a nonprofit organization registered in Ohio and headquartered in Columbus, spoke about the evil and violent nature of the Jews. . . . Imam Sultan referred to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated anti-Semitic text purporting to describe the Jews’ plan for world domination, to suggest that the conflict against the Jews is not only about Islam, but rather about the future of all of mankind.

Al-Azdee also notes how often such rhetoric fails to disguise anti-Semitism as mere anti-Zionism:

A vivid example in this regard is the way Imam Abolfazl Bahram Nahidian of the Manassas Mosque in Virginia criticized Israel while speaking to the crowd attending the 2010 Al-Quds Day Rally in Washington, DC. . . . It is evident, however, that Imam Nahidian was using Israel as a way to refer to Jews in general: “All the plots and the schemes that they make are to destroy humanity. They say, ‘The land, the leadership, and the wealth of the world belong to us, as the chosen people of God.’ Yes, they [the Jews] are the chosen people of God—to be the most devilish ones on the earth. They are doing that so they will stay above the rest of humanity.”

Congressional hearings show that the imams analyzed in this article are not just isolated cases. In 2021, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published an archive of around 450 pages recording the hatred, anti-Semitism, and incitement in sermons by imams of mosques throughout the U.S. . . . But if any audience is still doubtful regarding these findings, I encourage them to search for . . . any statement of any imam in the U.S. in which the imam states that the Jews are not pigs, apes, filthy, evil, [or the like].

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.